Daily Mail

I had to skip tennis at school to watch Dad win the Derby!

NOW ITV HOST HAS DREAM ROLE

- by Marcus Townend Racing Correspond­ent

FRANCESCA Cumani remembers the day High-Rise won the 1998 Derby for her trainer father Luca and, possibly, so do her fellow pupils in the tennis team at her school in Oxfordshir­e.

‘I had to play in a match that afternoon,’ recalls Cumani, who with Ed Chamberlin will co-host coverage of British Flat racing’s most prestigiou­s race on its return to ITV today.

‘Luckily my games teacher was a real racing fan and let me duck out of the match to watch the race. I was too excited to play the rest of the match.’

Francesca made it to Derby day for the first time the following year to see her father’s Daliapour finish a length-and-a-half second to Sir Henry Cecil’s Oath.

‘I was so gutted to have missed out on High-Rise. I remember my brother Matt and I both had to catch a myriad of different trains to get to Epsom and Daliapour ran very well.’

Go back further in the Cumani memory and Francesca has vague recollecti­ons as a five-year- old watching her father win his first Derby with Kahyasi in 1988 — even if she recalls more of the huge excitement in her Newmarket home than how jockey Ray Cochrane drove the colt to victory by a length-and-a-half.

When you regularly do your primary school run with mother Sara leading you on your pony, the chances are that your adult life is going to be in racing.

In fact, she had been riding out at her father’s Bedford House stables since she was 11, Luca finally relenting to her requests to join his string in the face of persistent pestering.

‘I think I fell off every day or every other day or got run away with,’ said the 34-year-old. ‘Having been so determined, I was not going to back down or give in to the bruises.’ There were few hints, however, Francesca might have a career in broadcasti­ng. But that changed when she represente­d her father after he sent horses to Australia to run in the Melbourne Cup. She turned from interviewe­e to interviewe­r when Channel 7 saw something they liked. Francesca said: ‘It was really just a lucky break. Initially, it was not really a job offer, but a shot working at the four days of the Melbourne Cup Carnival at Flemington. It was a bit daunting because they are the four biggest days in Australian racing. I had no previous training and experience.

‘But I enjoyed it and it must have gone better than I thought because they asked me back. I knew I had to improve but I was ready for a new challenge.’

A three-year deal with Channel 7 followed and her work Down Under meant she was on ITV’s wanted list when they won back the terrestria­l TV rights for racing from Channel 4.

Francesca Cumani is part of the ITV Derby team. Coverage starts with The Opening Show at 9.25am with afternoon action starting at 1.30pm.

 ?? TONY WARD ?? Racing talk: Francesca Cumani has fond memories of Derby day
TONY WARD Racing talk: Francesca Cumani has fond memories of Derby day

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